


it's only fire

by SF2187



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Kepcobi is my FUCKIN JAM, fuck y'all this is a lot of gin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 16:53:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12657570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SF2187/pseuds/SF2187
Summary: AU where gravity exists on the Hephaestus/Urania because I'm lazy: Daniel Jacobi has only seen Warren Kepler falter three times.





	it's only fire

Jacobi has seen Colonel Warren Kepler falter only three times since they first met in that dim, dusty bar. _Three times_. Of the hundreds—thousands—of unexpected problems throw at the man, Kepler has only flinched thrice. And, Jacobi knows (with a strange clenching in his stomach), it’s likely that nobody except him caught those momentary catches in Kepler’s confidence. Those miniscule breaks in the man’s swaggering sureness of the world.

The first time, so long ago, is still oddly vivid in Jacobi’s mind. Something about the way Kepler’s eyes widened oh-so-slightly; how his knuckles whitened, that hitching in his voice. It caught Jacobi so off-guard he felt he might never recover. To see the man he orbited like a planet the sun stumble even fractionally was beyond his imagination. He turned to catch Alana’s eyes, to share confusion, and found that she had missed the moment entirely. It was a second—a fraction of a second, perhaps—but it was enough for someone looking closely. For someone who was _always_ looking closely. That was the moment Jacobi realised he was absolutely, beyond imaginably, undeniably fucked.

The second was when Minkowski shot Alana in the head.

He wasn’t there, for either of them. Not with Alana to save her, nor with Kepler to save himself. But he heard it; saw it later as he and Kepler were zip-tied together and thrown into the so-called brig. He heard the alien hesitation in his commanding officer’s voice, that low, hitching growl. A scared sound that made him want to grasp Kepler’s stubbled face and press their mouths together in a moment of desperation and heartbreak.

Or, slam his fists into it. Repeatedly.

The third is now. Right. Fucking. Now. Seconds after Jacobi orders Minkowski to shoot the Colonel right where she shot Alana. Right now, as Kepler’s head jerks around to gape at Jacobi with enough confusion that even Minkowski must see it.

Well, gape is a strong word; any normal person might imagine mouth agape, eyes wide, a dramatic gasp in the background. Kepler’s face is still stony, his jaw doesn’t drop. But, there’s that hitch. That fear in his simple, hesitating, “Ja...cobi?”

Oh, how Daniel wants to slam him against the bulkhead and kiss him. Or is it _kill_ him? He’s not sure at the moment, and he hasn’t been for a while. Kepler’s shock is delicious in so many ways. He lets the moment hang in the air, tastes his superior’s fear upon his tongue. He finds that he likes this feeling: one of control, of being able to invoke this reaction in a man he once thought carved from granite and marble. A man he once thought would have more control over him than even gravity itself.

He fixes Kepler’s eyes with his own, and he smiles a hungry, wolfish smile.

 

Colonel Warren Kepler is less sure of himself than anyone could ever imagine. The people in his life—those he commands, and those he is commanded by—see him as some kind of immovable object. A stubborn, strong man who pulls others into his orbit and refuses to relinquish control until they are either dead, or wishing they were.

But—and there’s always a but—there are times when he is, well, somewhat surprised. The moments are rare, few and far between, but they do exist. As far as he can tell, nobody has ever caught him in those moments.

Except for one person. One frustrating, smartassed person.

Sure, Kepler knew what he was doing when he met Jacobi in the dingy bar so many years ago. When he gave him that crooked, almost-flirtatious grin. When he brushed his knuckles across the back of Jacobi’s fingers as he passed over a scotch. He _knew_ how to convince Jacobi to want him, and therefore: to want the job. Not the most wholesome of employment tactics, but Kepler knows as well as anyone within the higher ranks of Goddard that honesty and empathy get you nowhere. Unlike Kepler, Jacobi still had humanity, and that showed in the volume of cheap alcohol the man had drunk before Kepler turned up—but Jacobi was also someone who could shunt that humanity far away, into a little black box in his brain that nobody, including himself, could access. He was like Kepler, only younger. Someone who could _become_ him, if only in action. At the time, he thought only of that fact: of how he could turn this traumatized young man into the operative Goddard needed.

He finds he’s been thinking otherwise for a while. When, exactly, he felt he wanted to open up to Jacobi he can’t exactly remember. Regardless, it’s been a while. More than a while. Longer than he would like to admit, if he’s completely honest (and he so rarely is).

One day, without any warning, Kepler had realised he was attracted to Jacobi. He thinks _attracted_ to make it easier on himself, to not dispel of the idea of being an empty, emotionless man. If Kepler makes it about the physical, about sex and nothing else, then that’s all it can be.

He realises, at this moment, that he’s felt more than attraction for Jacobi for longer than he’s let himself admit. Kepler has been—Christ almighty, he can barely _think_ it—in love with Daniel Jacobi since, well, does it really matter? Right now, the shock of _being in love_ with someone is enough. He hears Jacobi demand his death, and his oft-ignored heart freezes mid-beat. He hears the cold, angry words coming from Jacobi’s mouth and he can’t help but catch his breath, can’t help but feel his heart fracture within his chest.

This is when he realises how much of a monster he has been.

For so long, he has acted as the sun to his soldiers’ solar system. They treated him as some kind of celestial body, and he let them believe he was exactly that. He started to believe it, himself. People died, people left, people were killed under his watch. He let them orbit and die, until he was left with one man. The Moon to his Earth, the Ganymede to his Jupiter; the Jacobi to his Kepler. The one man he knew would never break from his pull—the man who so tangibly wanted him, needed him, _loved_ him. Jacobi was as much his constant as he was Jacobi’s.

And here is Jacobi: resisting his pull.

He takes a breath, willing his chest not to collapse within from the pain and guilt. Willing his voice not to catch as he speaks.

“Ja...cobi?”

He sees that Jacobi catches the pain, the hesitation in his voice. He’s always known when Jacobi saw right through him. Kepler has always had that weaker, terrified man within himself. As much as he tries to bury that part of him, it exists. Only two people have seen it thus far: Cutter—of course—and reliable Daniel Jacobi.

He gulps down the rest of the words that are unsure, asking for clarification or help. When Jacobi turns to him and smiles, his canines bared in a way that lets Kepler know the other man wants to tear his throat out, he finds himself wishing that Minkowski _would_ pull the trigger. Anything to let him escape the terror of being unsure, of the doubt of this particular moment.

Anything at all, to let Kepler fall into a cold, black peace where his heart isn’t being torn apart by his own mistakes.

He never thought that he was the one who had fallen the hardest until now.

  


**Author's Note:**

> i am not going to lie, there was a lot of rose gin put into this: i'll edit tomorrow


End file.
